So you shall live in this sweet dying art
Your visage etched in ink as beauties past;
For if a poet’s pen may capture worth,
I pray these words will never be surpassed.
If sweetest essence can distill in rhyme
May those who quaff fall blind in imagery
As fools who search for angels on the sun
Or strain for mermaids on a moonlit sea;
For what is beauty but a living dream,
And what is truth—not but a tenet pure—
Yet when the two are joined in esse supreme,
From unions such rise sylphs beyond compare;
If these words lie then may God strike me dead—
But if they’re true, need nothing more be said.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.